Why are U.S. infants still dying? : understanding the underlying trends of the infant mortality rate in the United States

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The work Why are U.S. infants still dying? : understanding the underlying trends of the infant mortality rate in the United States represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Brigham Young University. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, http://bibfra.me/vocab/marc/Manuscript, Books.

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Why are U.S. infants still dying? : understanding the underlying trends of the infant mortality rate in the United States

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Why are U.S. infants still dying? : understanding the underlying trends of the infant mortality rate in the United States

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understanding the underlying trends of the infant mortality rate in the United States

While a substantial body of research has been dedicated to understanding and addressing the chief causes of infant mortality in the developing world, far less has been done to analyze infant mortality trends in developed nations. The U.S. infant mortality rate (IMR) is of particular interest because it consistently lags behind most other developed nations, despite having one of the highest GDPs per capita and the highest concentration of health care resources of any nation. This project will examine the factors which may contribute to this troubling trend, including maternal health and access to care. We use regression analysis to study health data for the U.S. and the 33 other OECD countries, exploring how differences in teen pregnancy, smoking, drinking, and access to care between the U.S. and other developed nations may partially account for the abnormally high U.S. IMR. We also analyze the IMR within the U.S., using a large data set of birth and death records. We utilize logit regressions as well as nearest neighbor propensity score matching to estimate the effect of factors like prenatal care and teen pregnancy. Our findings suggest that prenatal care has a definite measurable impact on infant mortality rates, while teen pregnancy does not. This paper provides impetus for increasing access to prenatal care within the U.S. as a way to help reduce infant mortality

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UPB

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Honors Thesis--Brigham Young University, 2013.

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non fiction

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